How do I do it? I really want to homeschool my boys....BUT I work 3rd shift. IM not sure how I could do it and stay organized and focused on their schoolwork. I was wondering if someone could just take a look at my schedule and help me make some arrangments, so I am able to homeschool them. My son will be 4 next yr and starting preschool and thats when I want to start....the 2007-2008 school yr. Please help.....Im not sure how I can balance it all out....teacher, mother, wife ect.
I still have to do the cooking and cleaning and when would I fit that in?

My schedule is as follows.....I have tuesday and wednesdays off instead of the weekend. ANd as for hubby he works the same exact shift as me and has the same days off

8am-arrive home and pick up boys from sitters...take them home....turn on morning learning programs while I make breakfast and feed them.....and change out of my work clothes..Hubby takes his shower and does his exersizes in this time

9am-I usually am crawling into bed at this time while hubby watches the kids and eats his breakfast. The children play with their toys mostly until I wake up

noon-I wake up, make lunch and feed the children.....take a shower.....do the house cleaning .My hubby lays down for a nap and wakes up anywhere between 3 and 3:30pm......sometimtes 4pm.

4pm-I start making dinner and we eat between 5pm and 5:30
If we grill, which we do alot....hubby does the grilling

6pm-we take the kids to their sitters and we come home and go to sleep for work

10pm-we get up and go to work...and we work until about 7:30am

See my schedule is soo messed up I just couldnt think of a way to do it. I hope someone can help! I also forgot to add....my childrens ages are 3 and 1. We are also trying for baby #3. We are also moving into our new home in Oct of this yr...which we will have a room just for homeschooling!
PLEASE HELP!_________________Jolene

Have you thought about staying at home instead of working? A second income doesn't actually make that much after you factor in taxes and babysitter and transportation and so on, and if you absolutely need that little bit extra, you could find or make a job that allows you to work from home._________________Homeschool Articles - Events - Support Groups

yes we do need the extra income. We have a car payment. MY husbands income pays for the car payment, the car insurance and gas for the vehicles. He also pays the grocery bill and the other stuff for our home...toliet Paper, soap ect

My icome on the other hand pays for mortgage, cable, phone, internet, diapers, electric, gas, water and garbage.

So see we need this extra income. Im not sure of anything I could actually do at home...if anyone has any ideas...please share...Thanks_________________Jolene

What skills do you have and what do you do for work right now? Do you think you could survive with one car if only one of you had to work? That saves a rather big chunk of money for car maintenance, car insurance, and gas, so your subsidiary income wouldn't have to be nearly as large.

Of course, I have never been in your situation myself, so I probably shouldn't try to give any further advice Does anyone else want to step up?_________________Homeschool Articles - Events - Support Groups

Not having much info but could you start work at home? Perhaps cut back the hours?

When first starting the kids don't really do much work at all. A couple hours a day between noon and 3:30 (your schedule) would be more then enough. Alot of the work can be done verbally and done while your cleaning, shopping etc

You can sing the ABC's, teach the letter sounds, count, etc while doing other things. I found sitting down with my children at that age with a pencil and paper didn't accomplish much. They have short attention spans at that age and get bored with sitting. So on the go is a great way to do it. When he or she is learning counting you can ask them to count their dinosaurs or hot wheels....that tends to get them excited and keeps them learning too. When walking, even through a store, see how many colours you can find together. Or looking through one of their books have them find all the letter A's. Just a few ideas anyway for teaching while being busy.

I hope this has helped some._________________Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.-Goethe

Hi, I understand it is hard. I met a women with 3 kids and works 3rd shift, her husband works 1shift, so they do not have the expence of a sitter. Would you beable to switch shifts?
These days it does take two paychecks for most to make it. What do you do for a job now? What are your skills?
regards_________________mc

You should check out Miserly Moms by Joni McCoy. IF you are wanting to stay home, she has a lot of great ideas. I am a sahm of five, we have two vehicles (one was given to us, the other is paid off, but has 196000 miles on it), and are moving next week into a new house. How do we do it? First we decided what our priorities were, was it more important to have high speed internet, or be able to stay home? Was cable tv more important? Was a new car? New clothes? I have used a lot of information from Hillbilly Housewife (hillbillyhousewife.com), Joni McCoy's books, as well as other books to cut whatever I can so I can stay home. My husband works third shift because it is more convenient for our family (we love it) and there is a great differential his job pays for 3rd shift. When we decided it was time to move, we have outgrown our current home desperatly, he became a mobile notary. He works about ten hours a week at this job, sometimes more, sometimes less. This job is what made it possible for us to buy the new house. There is another book I am in the middle of reading right now, it's called Shattering the two-income myth , it is filled with tons of ideas for cutting expenses.

As far as fitting it into your schedule, I agree, the noon to 3:30 slot would be more than enough time. My first grader now only works about three hours a day, and that is with him having to wait for me to get done with one of the older ones, so it isn't straight through work time. We did use a couple of books for preschool, but he only worked in them one day a week. Doing it like that, they were a special treat he really enjoyed and didn't become torture for him. The rest of the week we did puzzles, lacing beads, sequence cards, opposite cards, played matching games, and played with playdough. By the time I officially started him in Kindergarten he already knew his ABCs and the majority of their sounds. (I want to say all, but I'm not 100% sure about that.) He flew through his math books, and started 1st grade Saxon in January of his Kindergarten year. He loved his "preschool" although we never called it that. We were just having fun Mommy and me time.

I encourage you, if you could work it out with changing your budget some, to stay home. Please forgive me if I have overstepped, I don't mean to. I know the benefit it has been for our family, and wish everyone were able to do it!

That is a rough schedule IMO, just from the lack of adequate sleep POV.

At the age of your kids, I would think that your waking time is enough. However you might have to give up some of your household chores or do some teaching during those chores.

Little things you and your husband do and make available, can mean a lot at those ages. Such as, posters on the wall, reading to the kids, magnetic letters and numbers on a magnet board or the fridge, counting and rolling the change that has gathered in the house are all great little bits that can help.

Maybe you could switch from your first sleeping session with your husband. Then you could spend the morning giving lessons and doing housework.

Or if the younger one naps in the afternoon and the older one doesn't then you could do that in the afternoon as you are doing housework.

Plus adding your two days off you could then have a little longer in the mornings.

Or mornings from your two days off and cut the day in half for sleeping on 2 working days. You stay up for 7 hours and teach then your husband stays up 7 hours while you sleep. Which also gives you a savings on babysitting for 2 days.

Or...and I throw this out there since your husband sounds like a helpful guy. Give him part of the homeschooling. If you could get him to read with your son some and put in an educational video for your son. Then if he doesn't nap in the afternoon you could spend time cleaning and some time homeschooling.

The most important thing is teaching what you want him to learn but making it fun. Making sure you get him to ask loads of questions and you answering them. Believe me when I say, they figure out quick that this is their time to be curious!!!! You can teach anywhere. I taught my son math in the driveway with chalk.